Tomorrow Daily

On today's show, Khail and Ashley celebrate a prototype battery that could someday change the way devices are made, explain how you can use your Xbox One to watch live TV without a cable subscription and check out a company growing chairs, tables and...

23:46 / April 8, 2015

Transcript

On today's show, Stanford University researchers show off a battery that recharges in less than a minute.
And soon, you're gonna be able to watch television for free on your XBox One.
I'll tell you how in just a second.
Hold on.
And,.
A UK company is growing furniture, like literally growing furniture out of the ground, and we'll explain how.
Tomorrow Daily.
[MUSIC]
Greeting citizens of the internet, welcome to Tomorrow Daily, the best geek talk show in the known universe.
I'm co-host Ashley Esqueda join me, as always, Khail Anonymous.
I totally picture you having to grow the furniture and then put it together like IKEA.
Yeah you grow the parts, a little allen wrench, and then you have to put it together with a friend.
You just go to IKEA to buy the seeds.
Now forget it, you can't even buy a flat pack.
I presume it's cooler than that.
It is.
Is it much cooler than that.
It is.
It's pretty great.
Ok we got some good stories.
It's weird but it's really cool.
Alright.
Let's launch into this.
Alright, we'll do it.
Number one complaints about most smartphones?
Batteries?
Battery life?
Ya
Always running out of battery right?
Ya
Right, ok so.
Researchers at Stanford University showed off this video this week which made me so happy I almost, like, turned into the Willy Wonka glass dolls and just shot right through my ceiling.
They showed off this aluminum battery.
That recharges in less than a minute.
So, this is the battery right here.
Oh boy.
And, this is a prototype aluminum battery, like we said, that can recharge in about a minute.
It's powering an LED right there, you can see.
It's like a little green LED.
Here's some facts about aluminum.
Bendable!
Not like lithium-ion batteries which would make super flexible smartphones and things a possibility.
[CROSSTALK] there it is.
Powering a smart phone, they think they had a couple of them or a few of them all together.
So a little bit about aluminum batteries, I guess this has been a material that researchers have kinda had their eye on for a long time, like, they've been interested in making batteries out of aluminum, but the biggest hurdles have been voltage.
And also getting it to the point where it can have multiple recharge cycles.
So being able to plug it in over and over again and being able to use the phone.
So now they're saying that this is, has no recharge decay over hundreds even thousands of recharge cycles.
Which is pretty awesome, because lithium ion, over time they decrease.
So there's that.
They are inexpensive, they are fully bendable, and they are made of aluminum and graphite.
So they're saying that now that they've made this aluminum battery.
Mm-hm.
Or if I was Johnny, I would call it alu, aluminium.
Now that they've made this aluminum battery, they're saying that the goals are for, from this point forward.
A, making it scale up, so finding ways to scale up the battery technology.
Increase the capacity, obviously, cuz you wanna be able to power things that are bigger than an LED light.
And then they also wanna get a low cost electro, electrolyte material.
So they're working on sort of developing this battery an, and moving forward with it but it is a great interest I think to a lot of people.
To everybody.
A lot of people because yeah we all use batteries.
That's like a big business.
Yeah.
Batteries are big business, and I think I think really that's kinda been the, the, the big gate on new technologies.
I mean for me,.
Its battery, because really there is only so much you can do when you need to have a little block of lithium ion inside a device or you need to have a small watch battery or you know, whatever that is.
This is flexible its its totally bendable.
You saw in the video they just like bent it right up.
So I think this is really cool.
It could be really exciting.
I know we're kind of also waiting on graphene, that's another battery technology that has the potential to be pretty amazing.
But, yeah.
So, aluminum and, and, graphite.
I think we can all get behind this.
I am behind it 150 percent.
That's a little too much.
Nice work, Stanford.
I'm looking forward to the future of this battery.
Yeah.
I'm keeping my eyes on it.
I want those for sure.
How can I watched Xbox TV.
How can I watch TV on my Xbox for you said free?
Yeah, you can't.
Not yet.
But very, very soon.
Oh I can't.
Because this was announced today.
Okay.
So.
One of the best reasons to own a console, whether it be Xbox or Playstation is because it's also a media device.
Yes.
You can watch TV, movies, use apps and stuff like that.
While they added a feature that has been actually available outside the US and Canada.
They added it to, to us.
To you as Canadians can now get this feature which is.
That we can now stream television from television signals.
That it's, so it's for free.
Oh ok.
These are local stations like yeah like Fox, CBS, NBC, and so on.
This is very, very simple.
That's why this feature is.
So, cool.
All you have to do is buy this little attachment adapter and then put an antenna up.
Okay.
And you can stream all of this stuff through your Xbox.
But not only that, you can also pause the live tv, because this is a live feed, but because you're using it on this Xbox One, you can pause it.
You can pause it.
Oh that's really nice.
Unbelievable feature.
Oh, and you get a channel guide.
Look at that.
One of the other things that major tom.
Shows off over here.
It is that that you could also stream it to your tablet.
Oh.
So I can watch my live, my live stream ah,get content on there while you're playing I don't know Infamous 2.
Yeah.
I had to pick something.
Something Xbox exclusive.
[CROSSTALK] There you go.
So there are some limitations to this, you have to find out what you have in your area.
Ya
As far as broadcast and you can go to gomowho.com/Xbox to find out what's available in your area.
If you're an Xbox preview program member, you're going to get this earlier than everyone else.
Apparently it's coming to the rest of us.
Very, very, very, very soon.
A lot of people are saying they should pair this with something like sling back, Sling TV.
Yeah.
Or HBO Now.
But because this is free things that Sling TV is that it didn't include all of, all of broadcast.
Yep.
Like.
Local.
Or your local broadcast networks, and so, this would be a way to get that for free.
I mean, even though you have to make an investment with an XBox One, and, which is not cheap, and then the antenna and everything, but still, to be able to have broadcast TV.
TV, where you're able to pause it, like you were saying, like you hit pause.
You don't get DVR.
It doesn't have DVR, right?
No DVR?
No, no.
It doesn't have DVR capability.
Not really, yeah.
Yeah, but you still get to pause it.
Pausing it is something, because otherwise you just, like, life, feeding.
You have to sit there.
Yeah.
Obviously this isn't gonna blow anybody away.
It's not gonna sell Xboxes, but if you've already got an Xbox and you live in the United States or Canada, at leat now you know you have that capability.
It's a really nice feature.
It only costs a couple of bucks.
To get, like, I'm sorry, that's, it's probably about five dollars to get, like, the adapter and the antenna.
I bought my antenna for like three dollars.
Yeah.
The ACTV antennas are really cheap.
I think, I think there is like a box that they said, like, I, I think.
He was saying something along the lines of it being, there was a like a, the adapter was the more expensive thing, but there are options.
Mm hm.
Like you don't have to worry about like, oh its like $200 for this-
Yeah.
Like adapter or whatever.
So-
So if you're a, if you're a cable cutter and/or you're tired of watching.
And stuff on your cable service.
Keep going.
You can watch Family Guy, you can watch Last Man on Earth.
You can watch all that stuff through your Xbox and pause it and whatnot.
I like that.
You can save it, but there you go.
Cool.
Keep an eye out.
You gotta keep an eye out, again, it's not out yet, just keep an eye out and just look for it when it comes out, and then you can get all your friends into it.
Yeah, then they can all come over to your house.
I wouldn't know Adam.
So, I got to tell you about this furniture this [LAUGH], this furniture.
It's, it's.
Oh, yeah.
The the grow your own furniture?
Yeah oh, okay.
So there's a company in the UK called Full Grown and the guy who sort of, founded it, his name is Gabon Monroe.
He decided to figure out an alternative to the standard way of making furniture, which is like, chopping down a lot of trees.
And then you have to use fossil fuels to run the bulldozers and chainsaws and.
Oh, yeah.
As I've said, there's a lot of manufacturing kind of waste to that, and wood waste, as well.
Cuz you're, you know, basically taking a tree trunk and you're whittling it down to like a. The leg on a table.
So this guy, I love this story, decided to figure out an alternative.
Here's where it gets weird.
He uses a special plastic frame to coax trees made out of willow, oak, ash, and sycamore into the shapes of specific kinds of furniture.
So the three, that's the tree.
That is the tree.
There's no extra wood that was cut out of this.
He taught the tree to make a shape.
So here's, yeah, this is what it looks like when they're, they have.
Woah.
To splice everything and they have to kind of guide the tree into growing in a very specific fashion.
And they grow it into chairs, tables, frames, and lamps.
And when the tree matures fully, it's a complete piece of furniture.
There's no wood waste.
It's just a chair, or a table, or whatever.
[LAUGH] That's pretty clever.
That's how they do, like the.
Like art, like animals, like shrubbery animals.
Yeah.
Like a lama and the shape of like, like a tree in the shape of a lama.
Yes this is similar to that.
Okay.
Only the entire.
Yeah.
There's no trimming or pruning.
It's just the tree is grown into that shape.
So what does he make?
He makes chairs?
Chairs, tables, frames, there's like mirror frames and lamps.
And okay so there are about 400 trees at their farm.
And what they do when it's done is they just buff it out and they add some like, they're doing this right now for like the flat side of the chair and stuff.
So they'll sand everything and you know, and seal it.
Stain it if they want to, like whatever.
But you get this completely original, one of a kind chair, because it's a tree.
I want this.
Okay.
Okay
Let's let's.
[UNKNOWN] How, am I. If I [UNKNOWN].
I know I know I know
Because I do want one.
Ok, so.
Mind you, it takes four to eight years to grow [CROSSTALK] to grow a chair.
You don't just grow a chair overnight.
You don't just grow a chair.
Yeah yeah yeah.
So, but look at how bea...I mean, it's so cool.
Gonna have to order now.
You could order now and you get, ok, so.
[LAUGH]
So he is saying.
Look it's a greyhound.
Yeah that greyhound is so cute.
So it's like he's calling it organic 3D printing.
It's like organic 3D printing.
So there they are taking that one out..
In the winter time they like harvest all the chairs.
How much?
All right so first round of chairs will be ready in 2017.
So you got a couple more years to wait, and it's going to cost you $3700.
So it's
What am I going to do in the mean time?
On the ground.
I'm sorry.
That's pretty cool.
Pretty pricey chair.
Better
It's a pricey chair.
If you get that chair and you put it in your house.
You better be like, when people walk in, be like, hey, hey, hey!
Everybody come look at my chair.
[LAUGH]
Come look at my chair.
[LAUGH]
Sit in it, appreciate it, I'll tell you everything about it.
Guys, look at this chair.
They're like, that's great, I just bought one.
Lamps, the lamps and frames will be ready in spring of next year.
Uh-huh.
But they didn't have prices on that.
Uh-huh.
You have to, you have to click an inquire button the website, which means it's not gonna be cheap.
If I'm guessing, probably like $2000.
But.
It's still really cool.
Still love the idea.
[INAUDIBLE]
And, and it brings us to our hashtag of the day which is TDTREE, and the question is what would you want to grow from organic material if you could grow anything.
Like what's the thing that you would want to grow out of organic material.
So this guy's making.
Furniture out of trees, which is pretty awesome.
Okay, what would you do?
If I could, I would love some way to build a car out of like, I guess it would, sorta like seashells, I guess.
Like, I like the idea of like, having sort of a developed.
Cause it like, I don't know.
I think it would be awesome.
Or, or, a boat out of seaweed.
Where it's like a floating like a nice.
This is a very bizarre question of the day.
It is a weird question of the day.
I picked it because I want you guys to get a little bit weird about it.
I guess I would want a suit of armor.
Uh-huh.
Made of rocks.
I like that.
Or just iron or something.
Just iron.
That just naturally created itself.
Naturally.
Iron Man but I can't go anywhere in it.
I like, ok.
I think they'll have some fun with it.
I like a suit made out of like palm tree leaves.
It just grows into a suit and then you just walk into it.
I kinda like that.
I think that.
They had that in Hook.
Yeah.
They wore their little outfits.
Their hats were coconuts or something like that.
This is a really weird one.
You guys are gonna have a good time with it.
Super weird.
Have fun with it you guys.
We're going to take a quick break and we will be right back with a really, really cool mod squad straight out of Star Trek and we also have your user feedback and our phone dongle for the day.
So don't click away it's tomorrow daily.
And check this out.
[MUSIC]
Welcome back to the show.
I love that [UNKNOWN]
cosplay.
Mm-hm.
It's so cool.
Yeah, it's like how they made it in the movie, too.
Yeah.
It's a guy just behind it.
Just straight up went for it and it looks amazing.
Did you see that?
He like had a camera.
Like a camera built so he could see from the back.
[CROSSTALK].
What Tars is seeing in the front.
Very, very good.
Genius, I love it.
I hope it comes to Comicon.
Maybe he'll bring it to Comicon and we can see it in person.
That would be pretty awesome.
I love Tars.
I'm team Tars.
I am team Tars all the way too.
Ok so it is Wednesday which means we like to kind of find cool and crazy mods all over the internet.
This is mods.
[MUSIC]
What is there a graphic doing there?
I made that.
Did you?
It's so nice.
Look amazing.
Well done, Khail.
Thanks.
Well done.
Could have done better.
Oh, well alright.
So this week's mod squad [LAUGH] This week's mod squad comes from Christa Kach and Roald Schwartz.
Which sound like awesome Star Trek names actually.
I was just thinking about that and they made a wi-fi access point USS Enterprise.
And there's video of it so here is the process.
They took it all apart.
They used a ubiquity AP pro access point and they reassembled it inside the USS Enterprise model.
This is the original Enterprise from the the.
OG Star Trek television series.
Ok, so not next generation.
Nope, no TNG here, this is all OG Star Trek.
And so what they did was, so the wood base, they made one that looks like the the logo and they put the plug in there.
And then they have some LED lights in there and everything, and so there it is, they're working on putting this access point inside.
They got all the cables wrapped up, and then they put the lid on it, and boom, it is a beautiful WiFi access point that you never even know about because it just looks like a model of the USS Enterprise.
So it lights up then too, is what you're saying?
Yeah, it's got some LED lighting on the board that.
Looks like when you see the middle of it like when it's dark, it looks like theres activity going on inside the ship.
Yeah.
Which is pretty cool.
That's kind of my favorite mod squad.
Kind of love it.
It's so, it's so fun and such a simple concept but they, they really nailed it in terms of execution.
I mean you could, I wouldn't ever be able to tell.
That there was a Wi-Fi access point in there.
I wonder what the password to their Wi-Fi password was?
I'm going to guess it's something-
Engage!
In Klingon.
Oh.
Or maybe make it so.
Make it so?
Yeah.
I like that.
Make it so.
But that's, I know it's TNG, but, you know.
They did a little, Reddit AMA about it, like they were answering questions about it over on Reddit, and I was reading some of their answers, and one of the questions a lot of people had was does it get really hot, cuz they were expecting it to overheat.
Cause it's inside a really tight case and they're like no, actually it's not that bad.
Yes.
So pretty cool.
I thought that was super amazing and I'm I love clever mods so I thought that was kind of a win.
Yeah.
That was a big time win for me.
I don't know.
I dug it.
Where no Wi-Fi's have gone before.
Exactly.
Going where no wi-fi has gone before.
In a galaxy far, far away.
Nope.
Wrong one.
[CROSSTALK] But speaking of that, speaking of that, it's time for user feedback.
[MUSIC]
That was a great catch.
That was a great catch.
I got reflexes like a cat.
You, I can hear you laughing at me
Okay.
Like a, reflexes like a dead cat.
All right.
What do ya got?
Dead cat.
Okay.
So,.
I have to say I'm feeling very vindicated today, because many of you wrote in, and put Episode Three ahead of Return of the Jedi.
So we asked you guys to use the hashtag [UNKNOWN] and to rank six Star Wars films.
I gotta tell you, some surprises, but more than anything.
I would like to say that I am proud to be wrong with the rest of you because clearly Kale says that I'm incorrect.
But I'm happy to be wrong with all of you.
As opposed to right with Kale.
Because I picked.
Put three above six.
All I'm saying.
Ryan wrote in, God I don't care.
I don't really care.
Ryan wrote in and said number one Empire, then Jedi, then Sith, New Hope, Phantom and Clones.
Three and four and five and six are close, could go either way.
[LAUGH]
I'm surprised people put Phantom above Clones because a lot of people did.
A lot of people don't like Italians though.
I think they like that pod race though.
The pod race is awesome, and the other thing, though, is like I was thinking about Attack of the Clones.
Cuz I'm like, what are they talking about, Attack of the Clones is so cool!
But it's really only in the last 15 minutes of that movie is cool, cuz the rest of it is like the hills are alive with the sound of Jedi, where Anakin is like running, and they're like running at each other.
Yeah, yeah.
And rolling around in flowers.
I remember that.
Yeah, sand, it gets everywhere.
Gross.
Yuck, gross.
Stanley wrote in and said Jedi, Empire, Hope, Sith, Phantom Menace, Clones.
So, he put Return of the Jedi first, and then Empire, then A New Hope, Revenge of the Sith, Phantom Menace, and Clones.
Right.
Mm hm.
Then Veda wro, wrote in and said Ewoks ruined six.
[LAUGH] Oh, he says four, five, three.
6, 2, 1, which was, that was close to my order.
I said 5, 4, 3. Jar-Jar and bad acting Anakin ruined 2 and 1. May the Force be with you.
Aw.
James wrote in, had a message for you.
Said first off, @KhailAnonymous that t-shirt is inspired, your green Power Ranger shirt.
Love that.
[LAUGH].
As for #tdsw, the list for me is 4, 3, 5, 6, 1, 2 all of the Lightsabers in 3!
So he put A New Hope, Revenge of the Sith, and then Empire Strikes Back.
Here's the issue we have here.
And then Return of the Jedi, which is.
Here's the problem we have here.
We're gonna have to, you're gonna have to be killed.
You can't say that.
Here's the problem we have here.
Once again [COUGH] We're forgetting that the, the prequels for the most part, especially three, had a lot of, had a lot of support because of four, five, and six.
Yeah.
You know, you had, you basically already had the story.
But I think most people are giving three credit because of the fight scenes, and because of the cool action, or whatever.
And that's.
That's fair.
That's, we're talking about.
Terrible story, awful writing, and garbage direction.
I feel like that about episode, about, about, retur Return of the Jedi though.
Like a lot of it is really bad.
Like I, I mean, I guess.
I like, I look at it I'm just like this is just as bad.
But, I mean, that was back when.
Like, a long time ago.
The Godfather came out in the 70's!
But now with, like, gazillions of dollars, and then we have-
I would argue we make more terrible movies now than we did do back, like...
Yeah, sure, but not, not behind amazing franchises like that.
Okay, fair enough.
Maybe.
Maybe.
We'll see.
So that Batman be Superman to go.
There's not really been a great Superman recently.
Franchise.
But now we're just opening wounds everywhere.
I know.
Pouring salt in them.
Mm mm.
Yeah, that's a lot of salt in the wound.
God, what is this show becoming?
Ne, I know.
Neil wrote in and said Empire Strikes Back, A New Hope, Return of, blah, Re, Revenge of the Sith, Return of the Jedi, Attack of the Clones, The Phantom Menace.
That was my choices.
Return of the Jedi would have been higher, but ewoks?
Come on!
That's what he said.
People don't like ewoks, man.
I'm with you.
I got you.
Rik wrote in, said I'm gonna go with the unpopular opinion.
Episode 6, 5, 3, 4, 2, and I'm gonna pretend that Phantom Menace doesn't exist.
I like that he just completely dropped that one off, like, nope.
Producer Logan, you're the only person that's on my side.
How you feel about everybody putting 3 up there?
I would put it in the first, in the top three.
The original trilogy first.
And that's what I'm saying.
Is it just, it doesn't belong there.
You guys are all alone, that's what I'm saying.
I loved 3 of all of 1, 2, and 3. I loved it.
I thought it was great.
But it was only refreshing after one and two.
I don't know just five is better, better than six, better than six.
All right, it is time for our very last user feedback, it's time for our phonetographer for the day.
[MUSIC]
I'm really enjoying our listener rage that we're having, so fun.
[MUSIC]
I have a present for you.
This is a photographer that used a Note 4 at festival season.
Are you ready?
Oh, yes.
Okay.
This is from Ang.
And he wrote in and he said hey guys, long time watcher.
This photo.
Shot with my Samsung Note 4.
I shot this photo of my significant other of 13 years at a music festival and with much luck I got a sunset in the background.
He also said happy birthday to me so thank you [UNKNOWN].
Get out of here!
Look at this picture it's amazing.
He's at wonderland.
He's at he's at like one of the insomniac events I think.
It is gorgeous.
Whoa, that is awesome.
First of all,
It looks like it belongs in like a magazine or an ad
It looks like it should be like an ad for festival season.
Like it's just, go see a festival, look at the delights you're going to encounter.
This guy.
She's got a feather headset.
This guy is totally my kinda of guy.
Like.
I know!
Going to festivals, using the Note 4.
[LAUGH] Which I want.
That's what I'm saying!
Dutch angle.
Totally in a dutch angle.
[CROSSTALK] And he watches Tomorrow Daily, which, that's where we differ.
I don't watch Tomorrow Daily.
But still.
Look at that figure looks amazing.
Cool.
And it's a good ear lady is delightful and gorgeous.
Are you assuming that's a lady?
Well he said it's of his significant other.
Oh.
Yeah.
Your lady is literally gorgeous and that is a stunning picture and she should be a festival season model just.
For all the festivals.
Definitely.
They just bring her out for free, they should fly both you guys out and just have you guys take pictures.
Yeah, you should take her to more festivals.
Yeah.
There I just went and like screwed him over.
He has to go to every festival.
If you guys wanna submit your phonetography you can email us your phonetography.
Tell us what device you took your picture with, tell us a little story about it.
Or you can send it.
Story ideas, feedback for the show, whatever you want to tomorrow@cnet.com.
And we also are on social media.
We're Tomorrow Daily on snapchat, tumblr, Facebook, twitter, instagram, and Tomorrow Daily TV over on Google Plus.
If you're watching on YouTube don't forget to like, favorite subscribe and also if you're listening on iTunes don't forget to rate and review.
And also if you're on twitter don't forget to follow us on twitter.
And I'm Mad Ashley Esqueda.
And that's it for the show today.
We'll be back tomorrow with a whole new docket of weird, wonderful science fantasy and science fiction, all that good stuff.
But until then, be good humans, and we'll see you guys next time.
Bye.
[MUSIC]

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